I was installing a new PASSENGER AIRBAG lamp assembly and noticed the airbag light is still on....so I tested and retested using my Durametric which yielded zero. Now I start to pull out of my garage and it's very hot, so maybe idling for 20 min or so elevated the engine temp past 175? Well then I get a BATTERY warning in RED on my gauge cluster. Power steering is suddenly gone.

I am using Durametric 652. I tested everything again. Old faults came back, random : trunk latch, cat efficiency code, and drivers airbag. Hope I didn't melt something.

 

I'll add the engine fan is still running.....

 

Is your serpentine belt still there? No belt, no charge, tons of electrical faults, followed by rising engine temps since the WP is no longer spinning.

 

Come to think of it I heard a loud POP or THUD somewhere in there 100%. I wondered wtf was that but my neighbor distracted me for a bit and I thought she had thumped the roof! The belt is brand new and I kept the original in the car as my spare.

 

Belt is basically not even dirty. It came off somehow. Gotta crawl into my sometime not on the verge of early evening heatstroke and imminent skeeter attacks. I did the entire water pump and thermostat, all pulleys, etc. Multiple times too. Don't ask. If memory serves me correctly I must put car on ramps to gain easy catalytics and x pipe. I actually need to do this anyway to replace my exhaust flanges and check a suspect loose 02 sensor. I could see the belt was askew immediately with y'alls help which is appreciated.

 

Nice catch

 

+1

I love this place!

 

How the hell does the belt come off!!??????

 

Not enough tension. Slightly askew. A critter. But there'd probably be some blood... Some spinning thing seized up?

Bad luck? You have had some bad luck in that area of the engine...

 

Lucky guess

 

Well once I'm underneath I can see, air box comes out anyway... During my first examination yesterday I could not see anything misaligned in the least. All the pulleys and water pump are new. Short of that, if it was hot enough, and it was F'n hot as y'all know, maybe it stretched and slipped?

 

But it gets much more interesting.....my 991 buddy comes over and we go up to the dealer to buy new catalytic bracket bolts as I observed while underneath the pulley train, & notice they are gone. More later on that. Wtf? While at dealer we had to wait and ended up a length talking to the head of Motorsports about 997 1-2 shift issue. At 105k mi 100% replace your transmission carrier mounts and engine mounts as well as shift cables if your manual won't shift accurately for you. As I plan to track mine it's a must. He likes the yellow Rennlines best, but OEM are cheapest and likely 100% up to the job. Worst part is I already had them out at least twice when doing the first monster DIY job after water pump failed.

So that first job above ended when I thought I had stripped an XZN female bolt for the block at the thermostat housing. I sent it to the dealer and they said they merely threaded in a new fastener and it's fine. Nothing stripped problem solved, well upon delivery of the vehicle there's a persistent rattle on the passenger side I could never pinpoint. Wouldn't go away. Fast forward to today and I'm now home from dealership starting to diagnose my car. Remove exhausts. Unbolted catalytics from them and then the sensors themselves, black then blue to outside. Well the passenger side cat has something loose inside it. I give it a shake. I'm thinking the whole cat has just gone to bits, and I shake this from it care of my precocious 3 year old son/free assistant.

 

Cooked. Letter to CRAFTSMAN mentally taking shape.....notice pieces missing from articulated wrench including but not limited to the direction selector and detents.

 

Am I reading this right? Your Son 'stored' the wrench and/or socket in the Cat for you???

 

Yes and whole host of small items are missing amongst them are my wallet with $2k in it and several very cool AAA flashlights in various metals.

So why did the belt slip? The bottom pulley fastener BROKE almost 1.25" down inside the block. I could see the pulley cocked back against the block and finally fished it out. I'm kinda stumped at this point.